We are drowning in numbers, and we no longer understand what they mean. Every day, headlines bombard us with figures meant to inform: billions in spending, trillions in debt, percentages signaling growth or decline. But for most of us, these numbers blur together. They register as “large” or “small,” but almost never as real. And that is more than a math problem. It is a civic one.
INFORMS has awarded Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) its 2026 Franz Edelman Award for Achievement in Advanced Analytics, Operations Research and Management Science, for reengineering how global cloud infrastructure is planned and delivered, applying advanced analytics and AI to orchestrate complex fulfillment decisions across its rapidly expanding data center network.
In the rush to adopt artificial intelligence, many employers are now requiring that employees use AI tools. As you’re using AI, be intentional and selective. It’s critical that you know yourself. Research published in Management Science found that AI is most valuable for people who understand their own abilities and limitations. Assess yourself, so you can factor this into your process for incorporating AI into your work.
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The authorization granted to Moderna's vaccine highlights the role of Operation Warp Speed set up by Washington to accelerate the quest for drugs and vaccines against Covid-19. With an "American-style" method: innovation, a lot of money, soldiers and a dose of marketing.
In this post, we focus on the logistical challenges associated with distributing different types of COVID-19 vaccines to millions of people, from urban centers to sparsely populated rural counties. To address those questions, we spoke with Julie Swann, a systems engineer with expertise in vaccine distribution whose work focuses on making health care and supply chains more efficient, effective and equitable. Swann is the department head and A. Doug Allison Distinguished Professor of the Fitts Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at NC State.
When the first doses of a COVID-19 from Pfizer and BioNTech were administered across the United States on Monday, it marked the beginning of a mass distribution effor that hinges on an unlikely product: dry ice.
Several thousand doses of Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine were quarantined in California and Alabama after the US authorities encountered a transit anomaly that caused the storage temperature to get too cold. According to Gen. Gustave Perna, the one overseeing the logistics for Operation Warp Speed, the doses never left the truck, but they have to ensure that this anomaly is safe.
Sheldon H. Jacobson doesn’t mince words about the lack of a coordinated effort to collect reliable data about COVID. “Data collection has been a disaster during this pandemic,” says Jacobson, a Founder Professor of Computer Science at the University of Illinois and a leader at INFORMS, an association for operations research and analytics professionals. “For someone who uses data and analyzes data, it took me months to get info from the CDC.”
OR/MS Today is the INFORMS member magazine that shares the latest research and best practices in operations research, analytics and the management sciences.
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Analytics magazine showcases articles and research reports based on big data, AI, machine learning, data analytics and other new-age technologies.
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